Anyone that has been reading Android and Me for awhile now is aware that we have a somewhat tempestuous relationship with Gameloft. They were staunch holdouts on the Android Market for quite some time, and their less-than-customer-friendly direct purchase model wasn’t exactly endearing them to anyone.

With that said, they seem to have turned over a new leaf in the past few months. The company has been releasing quite a bit of their catalog into the Market. Their games are often a little on the pricey side ($4.99-$6.99), but not unreasonable considering they usually feature quite a bit of depth and polish.

This brings me to their newest release, GT Racing: Motor Academy. As you can probably surmise, it’s a racing game in the style of Gran Turismo. Early reviews in the Market are mostly positive. One notable exception is the lone written review that simply says, “Sucks.” Chances are if you’re a fan of racing games, it’ll be worth your while to at least take it for a spin. This game is following in the footsteps of the recently released Green Farm and comes to you completely free of charge.

Before you start composing a song about the benevolence of the new Gameloft, be aware the game features that evil temptress the in-app purchase. For prices ranging from $2.99 – $99.99 you can snap yourself up some XP, credits and/or cash to vault deep into the game without breaking a sweat. If you’re strong of will, simply plug along and you’ll eventually unlock everything. But a recent study from Flurry Analytics shows that companies are probably right to bank on users taking the easy route; users spend an average of $14 per transaction on these freemium games.

I’ve bought a healthy number of apps and games through the Market, but I can’t recall making any in-app purchases yet. Have any of you given it a shot? If so, what got you to break out your wallet?

Update: Sorry about that guys, many of you have pointed out that the app is not available on your device. They have a list of compatible phones in the description if you follow the Market link below, but if you have the Sensation, Evo 3d, or any tablet I can tell you right now it isn’t going to work.

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On some games, you have to purchase items to progress. Such as “Gun Bros”, using the “earned upgrades” only get’s you through the 1st episode. To continue, you either need to play the same level 50 times to earn enough credits. It seems that’s the hook. You can spend several hours to get one upgrade, or pay the $2 to $5 to progress. Then you hit the same wall and the cycle repeats

I think I’m the sort that would just stop playing if I hit a wall like that, but I can definitely see how you could get sucked into shelling out some cash if you are enjoying the game and just want to keep playing. Obviously it’s a solid money making strategy and whatever helps developers make cash without subjecting us to wall to wall ads, I’m looking at you Scrabble, is good for the whole Android ecosystem.

the tablet issue is a chicken and egg problem. Only a few apps are compatible (and some of the ones that are render odd). As a customer, it’s hard to justify purchase if many apps wont work properly. As a developer, it’s hard to justify the time to only target a few users.

The only in-app purchase I’ve made was when I bought Dropsnap when it first came out. Worked flawlessly, and even after he dropped the in-app purchase for market purchases, the app still remembers that I paid in-app. Not sure if I’d pay inside a game though…

I can’t wait till more games come out for my dualcore monsters. Hopefully Qualcomm will come strong with there’s soon. Meanwhile I download games from Amazon app store as well as app brian and gameloft. I also try to download some android market games otherwise I am in waiting mode.

It’s really not that big of a deal to purchase apps directly from their website instead of the Android Market. Like them or not, Gameloft has some of the highest quality games in the mobile app markets/stores period. If it takes going to their website to purchase their high quality apps instead of conveniently in the market then so be it.

This game looks and feels great on my Incredible S. I was taken aback by the quality of, what is essentially, a free game. I’m pretty busy these days and generally only ever dip in and out of game play (give or take a train journey’s worth of trying to top my Fruit Ninja score). The in-game purchase model suites me perfectly because I haven’t yet found a game good enough to tempt me in to buying… but they’re getting close.

On just playing around with GT Racing during a snatched 10 minutes the quality of this title was obvious. The developers have really put some time and effort in to, not only the look and feel, but the handling of the multitude vehicles offered your way within the first 5 sections of your grade C license. That’s right, this game has a license system similar in form to Grand Tourisimo’s. And that’s not all it borrows from the iconic racing series with weighty, simulation steering and real world cars. It also features the racing line familiar to Forza players.

It looks like there is plenty of free content to keep me occupied within the small windows I actually get to play with my phone. I’m usually fielding Facebook messages, emails, gmails, gtalk, Skype calls, tweets, not to mention texts and calls. All stratified between spending time with my family, running my business and doing much of the stuff I do on my phone on my desktop at work.

I can understand how people with more time and inclination will spend in-game if they enjoy the experience enough. As the players enjoyment of a game increases, so too will their willingness to pay for additional content.

It win, win for everyone because developers are motivated to produce more and more engaging games because better content equals better revenue. And gamers, hardcore and casual alike, get genuinely high quality free stuff. If this game gets any better then maybe it will entice me away from iReader, Pulse, Arseblog, XDA and Tweetdeck long enough to make me spend.

It’$ Fun unless you Don’t want to pay *Drops savings account money being saved for a Prius (Not the in-game one)*. It’s also a ancient version, not the cool stuff like the Paradigms and new cars like from the iPod version which is too small. I hope your rich… Now back to endlessly looking for Real Racing 3 Gold hacks.

On some games, you have to purchase items to progress. Such as “Gun Bros”, using the “earned upgrades” only get’s you through the 1st episode. To continue, you either need to play the same level 50 times to earn enough credits. It seems that’s the hook. You can spend several hours to get one upgrade, or pay the $2 to $5 to progress. Then you hit the same wall and the cycle repeats

I think I’m the sort that would just stop playing if I hit a wall like that, but I can definitely see how you could get sucked into shelling out some cash if you are enjoying the game and just want to keep playing. Obviously it’s a solid money making strategy and whatever helps developers make cash without subjecting us to wall to wall ads, I’m looking at you Scrabble, is good for the whole Android ecosystem.

the tablet issue is a chicken and egg problem. Only a few apps are compatible (and some of the ones that are render odd). As a customer, it’s hard to justify purchase if many apps wont work properly. As a developer, it’s hard to justify the time to only target a few users.

The only in-app purchase I’ve made was when I bought Dropsnap when it first came out. Worked flawlessly, and even after he dropped the in-app purchase for market purchases, the app still remembers that I paid in-app. Not sure if I’d pay inside a game though…

I can’t wait till more games come out for my dualcore monsters. Hopefully Qualcomm will come strong with there’s soon. Meanwhile I download games from Amazon app store as well as app brian and gameloft. I also try to download some android market games otherwise I am in waiting mode.

It’s really not that big of a deal to purchase apps directly from their website instead of the Android Market. Like them or not, Gameloft has some of the highest quality games in the mobile app markets/stores period. If it takes going to their website to purchase their high quality apps instead of conveniently in the market then so be it.

This game looks and feels great on my Incredible S. I was taken aback by the quality of, what is essentially, a free game. I’m pretty busy these days and generally only ever dip in and out of game play (give or take a train journey’s worth of trying to top my Fruit Ninja score). The in-game purchase model suites me perfectly because I haven’t yet found a game good enough to tempt me in to buying… but they’re getting close.

On just playing around with GT Racing during a snatched 10 minutes the quality of this title was obvious. The developers have really put some time and effort in to, not only the look and feel, but the handling of the multitude vehicles offered your way within the first 5 sections of your grade C license. That’s right, this game has a license system similar in form to Grand Tourisimo’s. And that’s not all it borrows from the iconic racing series with weighty, simulation steering and real world cars. It also features the racing line familiar to Forza players.

It looks like there is plenty of free content to keep me occupied within the small windows I actually get to play with my phone. I’m usually fielding Facebook messages, emails, gmails, gtalk, Skype calls, tweets, not to mention texts and calls. All stratified between spending time with my family, running my business and doing much of the stuff I do on my phone on my desktop at work.

I can understand how people with more time and inclination will spend in-game if they enjoy the experience enough. As the players enjoyment of a game increases, so too will their willingness to pay for additional content.

It win, win for everyone because developers are motivated to produce more and more engaging games because better content equals better revenue. And gamers, hardcore and casual alike, get genuinely high quality free stuff. If this game gets any better then maybe it will entice me away from iReader, Pulse, Arseblog, XDA and Tweetdeck long enough to make me spend.

It’$ Fun unless you Don’t want to pay *Drops savings account money being saved for a Prius (Not the in-game one)*. It’s also a ancient version, not the cool stuff like the Paradigms and new cars like from the iPod version which is too small. I hope your rich… Now back to endlessly looking for Real Racing 3 Gold hacks.